Stories of Self Defense

BREAKING: New York to Ban/Regulate 3D Printed Guns and Parts

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According to cnet, New York could become the first state to specifically legislate 3D printed guns and New York City could become the first city to do so. Legislation has been introduced in the empire state at both the state and city level which seeks to regulate and/or outright ban 3D printed guns and gun parts.

The NYC bill, introduced by Council Member Lewis Fidler, would make it a crime to produce any part of a firearm using a 3D printer unless you’re a licensed gunsmith. Any printed parts would have to be registered with the city within 72 hours of manufacture. Under that language we assume that using a 3D printer to make gun parts that aren’t actually considered firearms such as grips, magazines, etc would also be illegal.

“If left unregulated, these would be weapons without histories — potentially no identifying marks or sales histories,” Fidler told New York Daily News. “We wouldn’t even know these weapons exist, until they were fired.”

Things are looking even stricter at the state level. According to cnet, State Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal introduced the bill for New York State on May 30. Her legislation seeks to make it a felony for the manufacture, sale, or use of firearms and ammunition magazines made with 3D printers.

“It can become dangerous if people start printing their own firearms and there is no regulation,” Rosenthal told New York Daily News.

The Texas based company Defense Distributed released the plans for several 3D printed guns earlier this year and their website was famously taken offline by the US State Department for possible international trade violations because the downloads were available worldwide.

However, before the files were taken down, they are downloaded over 100,000 times and from there made it onto torrent networks all over the net (you can’t stop the signal). To date the plans have presumably been downloaded millions of times and are still readily available at numerous places online.

Defense Distributed produced plans for a single shot, completely 3D printed (except the firing pin), single shot pistol called the Liberator. They also released plans for an AR-15 lower receiver. The lower receiver of the AR15 is the part of the weapon that is actually considered a firearm and subject to regulation. The AR receiver worked for several hundred rounds using standard AR-15 parts.